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Comment by armchairhacker | Hacker News Reader

I honestly don't really like VSCode or see the hype. To me it feels very clunky. I'm spoiled with IntelliJ but I also use regular Visual Studio Notepad++ and Vim and I've Xcode in the old days, and all seemed better than VSCode.

#1 issue is that the extensions are all written in TypeScript and run in the background. When I click to go to a definition, rename, run, or even save, I get that "progress bar" and it takes at least a second. A lot of extensions are also buggy. Vs a "real" IDE like IntelliJ or Xcode, which does those operations almost instantly with significantly less bugs.

If VSCode isn't a "real" IDE, then it competes with other text-editors like Notepad++, Vim (not counting advanced versions like Spacemacs), etc. But those are way faster and less cluttered because text editing is all they try to do.

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> I honestly don't really like VSCode or see the hype. To me it feels very clunky.

It's funny because I've been trying WebStorm and it brings my i9 16" MacBook to a crawl so VSCode feels much "faster". It doesn't help that simple operations like renaming anything are multi-step processes or are just apparently missing (no apparent way to delete a file or visit its parent folder from the command palette)

I agree with the rest. VSCode to me is just a little step up from Sublime Text for UI and base features, but it's still a far cry from proper IDEs like WebStorm (of which I like the proper refactoring features)

VSCode's remote editing extension is the killer feature.

The only thing that comes close is TRAMP in emacs, but unfortunately since emacs is single threaded, any network blips means the UI is blocked.

I've felt that VSCode (and Sublime, etc..) are all text editors when you download them.

Then you install extensions/plugins to move them slightly more towards the direction of IDE.

I see text editors as fast. IDEs as slow but full of features. This allows you to find a middle ground that works best for you. That is as long as you don't do the rookie mistake of installing 100 extensions, 90% that you'll never use but you read about them in a blog & they sound awesome! Kind of like we all do for books, videos, etc.. Someday I'll use them!

> I see text editors as fast. IDEs as slow but full of features.

Me too. The problem with VSCode (and Atom and maybe Sublime) is that even basic IDE features are slow are buggy. And when I'm using an IDE, I constantly use "basic" features like jump to definition, find definition, rename, etc.

IntelliJ is impressive in that you can type, rename, type, jump to definition, rename, etc. and the operations are so fast that they don't disrupt your flow. Vs in VSCode where the operations will pile up in the background. Not to mention, IntelliJ's operations are usually successful, but VSCode's are usually not.

If VSCode could do basic things like jump to definition and rename properly, while still being super fast, then it would be really useful. But idk if it's just me but even in TypeScript I don't get those capabilities.

Not sure if it's you or me. I have a few extensions installed. But I'm fairly confident, especially in TypeScript, that F12 on Windows will jump me to any definition. If I click F12 on code that defines a class or React component, it pops up a window showing me different files & code that is using said class/component.

VSCode extension are written in Typescript but most of them rely on a language server for things like refactoring, type hints, code completion etc. These language servers run as native process (written in Go, C# etc), so are (roughly) as fast as your machine is.

If these operations take over a second it may be an issue with your machine or install of VS Code

The C++ extensions refuse to work in big projects for me. It grinds to a halt and I have found no way to limit its search path.

The major silly thing with VS Code is that it has no support for floating windows.

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